Sunday, July 27, 2008

We're home, sitting on the deck, both with a Mac on our laps, bottle of wine and yummy small things to nosh on beside us. Girl of the House is catching up on TV.

I did get her to model the latest 'drive to camping' hat.

This is the handspun yarn from the recently sundyed fiber.

Yup, just another hat.

But, it's good to have choices once that old winter weather rolls around.

Or, they're good for last minute gifts?

And they're great for mindless, going round and round knitting in the truck. And I've got tons of small skeins of handspun just right for hats. And it's time to reduce the quantities of small skeins floating in baskets around the house...

As far as the camping - it was wonderful, as usual.

I could live in the camper. It's a recurring conversation I have with Paul. "Let's just take off and travel and live in the camper for a few years. You never know what will happen in the future. We need to enjoy this NOW!"

He's very tolerant of this conversation. Gotta love him.

We pulled into Ft. Ridgely State Park on Friday afternoon. Chip got restless, roaming around the cab of the truck.

Here's something I never thought I'd see in a million years.

Paul driving with Chip on his lap.

We had a great supper of chicken legs, layered with potatos, onions, and green peppers.

A foil wrapped packet for each of us.

Yum!

We had a lovely campfire.

We hiked on Saturday. Here's the view from the Ft. Ridgely State Park geocache, looking over the Minnesota River Valley.

The Minnesota State Parks have finally entered the geocaching world. Many parks had refused to have geocaches placed in them till this year, when they joined in a big way, with a State Park geocache challenge. Now there is a series of caches - one in every park, and a special prize if you get all the caches in each area.

Bocce ball was played.

We played many games of cribbage, out on the picnic table, in the sun.

After supper, Paul and the Girl of the House had an extended conversation about United States History, from the late 1700s til now, focusing on all the wars.

Yeah, I listened and I took pictures...

There was an early morning thunderstorm. We jumped up at 5:40, closing the hatches on the truck and running outside to bring all kind of things. Then, back to bed for a few hours.There was enough of a morning clearing to have breakfast at our chosen coffee spot, just down the path a bit.

If you want to camp at Ft. Ridgely, make a reservation for site 37. It backs up to the creek, with an open view of the water. Gorgeous.

We had site 33. A nice site, backed up to the creek, but with alot of greenery between the campsite and the the water. So, we went down the road a bit for our quiet morning coffee.

Sunday morning breakfast - french toast and maple sausages.

Several years ago, we were camping and had planned to have french toast for breakfast. However, I discovered we hadn't brought any sugar, cinnamon, or nutmeg. Oops!

However, we had cocoa mix! And that's got sugar in it, right? So we mixed cocoa mix with the eggs and milk and gave it a try. We had cherry pie filling, left over from making cherry pies over the fire the night before, so some of that went on top.

YUM!

Now we always make french toast that way. It's the camping special.

Shortly after cleaning up from breakfast, the rain resumed. We returned to our cribbage fest, and played multiple games, snuggled up in the camper. GotH was the ultimate victor. (We need to stop teaching her new games to beat us.)

We drove home through New Ulm.

Came across this funny little truck, sitting in the repair shop.

It's from the Lyon County Sheriffs department. An armored truck, with gun ports and everything.

Why does Lyon County need an armored truck? Why is it being repaired in Brown county, two counties away? What in the world goes on in southwestern Minnesota?

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

First, decimate the huge basil plant you've been carefully tending in a pot on the deck.

Yes, I know we have enough land for a gorgeous garden. Yes, you know that we like to play too much to grow more than a few tomato and pepper plants in the actual garden.

OK, we've got asparagus and rhubarb, too, but they don't really require any care, now do they?

A couple or three cups of gorgeous fresh basil leaves, some pine nuts, a few big cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, and a healthy glog of extra virgin olive oil. (EVO, to the Girl of the House - a big Rachel Ray fan.)

Monday, July 14, 2008

I’ve seen this on a few blogs now and decided to play along, untagged. I love music games.

Here’s a music meme to reflect how eclectic your music collection might be. Put your music library in alphabetical order by song, then take the first song for each letter of the alphabet. No repeat artists. Tag five people then let them know they’ve been tagged to do the meme themselves. (No tagging here. Play along if you like!)

A: A.D.D. by System of a Down (Steal This Album)

B: B.B. King Intro (Live) by Warden Daniel Vasquez (Live at San Quentin)

C: C.O.D. by AC/DC (For Those About to Rock We Salute You)

D: D'yer Mak'er by Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin Remasters)

E: E-Pro by Beck (Guero)

F: F.I.N.E by Aerosmith (Pump)

G: Gabriel's Waltzes by the Fuschia Band (Gra Da Raibh)

H: Hair Down by the Cold War Kids (Robbers & Cowards)

I: I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again by Bonnie Raitt (Nick of Time)

J: J.A.R by Greenday (International Superhits!)

K: Kansas City by David Bromberg (Out of the Blues: Best of David Bromberg)

Whoa, weird mix. But that's why I LOVE shuffle. If you don't like this song so very much, hang on and a really cool one will come up next. With 8100 songs in my iTunes, I can go almost 22 days 24/7 and not hear a song repeated.

How 'bout you? If you try this, give me a comment and let me know, so I can look you up!